The Wedding From Hell

On the morning of Remitag, Ondar, Quelenna, Tai, Tahu, Ana, and Dryali are sitting together at a table in the tavern, sharing the stories of what they did to celebrate Tumultuous. Well, mostly. There’s also a fair amount of speculation about how to help Dryali retract his pole of collapsing in the event of an… awkward situation. Ondar suggests that thinking of rugby is supposed to be helpful, while Quelenna is mostly interested in the fact that it could be used as an improvised piercing or bludgeoning weapon. 

Into this extremely enlightened and thoughtful conversation, Damakaios enters to request volunteers for an upcoming mission. He informs the table that the House Ghanjashka and House Vangdondalor, two trading families alike in dignity, are hosting a wedding to cement their alliance. House Ghanjashka is a family of Blue Dragonborn that primarily invests in bulk goods trading, and is the primary competitor of House Drogo of Cliffshadow. House Vangdondalor is a family of Bronze Dragonborn that primarily trades in finer goods with some acquisitions. The two houses have a long standing rivalry, which they hope to turn into a business merger with the wedding of the youngest daughter of House Ghanjashka and the middle son of House Vangdondalor. The wedding is being held tomorrow at the Vangdondalor estate and garden down in the crater. 

The task is to ensure that the event does not get disrupted too badly by business rivals, though everyone at the table also understands that their presence is a show of prestige for House Vangdondalor. The mission will pay 250 gp. Intrigued, the Freelancers get more details from Damakaios.

Ana: Are we focusing on the venue, or do we need to make sure that the caterers and other vendors don’t get sabotaged as well?

Damakaios: Your task is to focus on the venue, the wedding preparations are House Vangdondalor’s problem.

Quelenna: Oh I see, we’re runtime support, not compile time support.

Ondar: Ondar would like to mention that a surefire way to fuck over a wedding is to ensure that one of the participants doesn’t show up. Are they likely to back out? Or be under threat?

Damakaios: Thankfully, part of the reason that Freelancers are being hired is that Alicja, the daughter of House Ganjashka, and Gauradas, the son of House Vangdondalor, seem to have actual affection for each other. 

At this explanation, Ana starts to get little hearts in her eyes because she loves a good love story. Dryali can pretty much see Romeo and Juliet scrolling in her head, and makes a sardonic face at Ana. Damakaios, seeing this interaction, moves quickly to mitigate the damage.

Damakaios: Well they liked each other a little, which paved the way for the arranged marriage, and they seem willing to make it work.

Dryali (eagerly changing the subject): Who are the heads of the houses?

Damakaios: Viktor is the head of House Ganjashka and Talaa is the head of House Vangdondalor.

Dryali: Will any other Freelancer guests be attending?

Damakaios (looking a little more uptight than usual): I wanted to go myself, but I received a… strange message from Julian that I need to follow up on.

At this, Ana and Tai share a worried glance. They know Julian from traveling with him to and from a bardic competition. He even wrote a song about their great deeds!

Ana: Does he seem okay?

Damakaios (looking slightly pained): I think so? It was hard to tell, but it definitely sounds like he is locked up somewhere. I’m worried because it seemed like either he was by himself or Wolf is also, errrr, detained with him.

Ana also asks if there are any top families we should worry about disrupting the proceedings. When Damakaios looks unsure, Tahu reminds Ana that it’s part of the culture of Commerce high society to play “pranks” on your rivals. And who your rivals are can shift day to day or hour to hour. Quelenna nods and notes that if messing with events is basically a sport, some disruption is expected, it will be our task to contain and mitigate the damage. Tahu wonders if this culture is big enough that allies will also do small pranks to make their mark, but Dryali dryly notes that there is no such thing as an innocuous prank and everyone is a rival. 

Having run out of questions, the collected Freelancers decide to accept the mission. Damakaios reminds them that he had suggested they buy fine clothes, which they will need to wear. Ana took this suggestion as a hint to upgrade her already fine clothes, and suggests that Tai can wear her old hat as a fascinator. Tai gratefully accepts, and the small red hat compliments his new suit beautifully. 

Thankfully, most of our heroes have flying mounts. So the group is easy to fly down into the crater through breezy weather to arrive at Vangdondalor Gardens, east of Flaxton. At the garden entrance, they are greeted by Musikaa, a well dressed Bronze Dragonborn who is the eldest daughter of House Vangdondalor. 

Musikaa tells the Freelancers that they will be staying in barracks tents in a courtyard, as the house has already been filled by the family of the happy couple. Mounts can also be stabled near there. On request, Musikaa also gives the Freelancers a tour of the grounds to help them orient themselves, and answers their many questions (See Appendix 1 for details).

Ondar and Quelenna are particularly concerned about how trustworthy the guards are. Hearing this, Tahu casts Minor Illusion to make himself look just like one of the guards. But Musikaa simply shakes her head at him, since she is well aware of how easy it is to look like a guard. However, the issue is more with the guests, so being careful about the guards will do little good. 

Meanwhile, Ana is mostly concerned about which parts of the garden are not replaceable should they, hmmmmmm, inconveniently catch fire? At this question, Musikaa rubs the base of her horns while Dryali makes little heart eyes behind his goggles. Thankfully, Musikaa also points out which parts of the garden are most valuable.

After completing their tour, the Freelancers head to a buffet dinner at the barracks tents to eat and plan how to approach the problem. For the night, they decide on four watches, pairing those with high and low ability to notice anything beyond their nose. For the wedding, they decide that Tai and Ana will fly above the party to keep an eye on things. Ondar will be on the ground on Frostclaw, who will be festively draped in bunting. Quelenna will patrol the ground along with Ondar. Dryali will keep watch on the gazebo while Tahu watches over the reception tent.

After planning is complete, our heroes split up into their watches. On first watch, Ondar mostly hears the sounds of a party coming from the mansion and sees a few guard patrols in the garden. On the second watch, Quelenna mostly thinks about how fun the sand garden is, while Dryali keeps an eye on things but notices nothing ordinary. On the third watch, Tai admires the gardens, and starts to see gardeners coming out to make sure everything is just so. On the fourth watch, Ana and Tahu see more staff start setting up, with a catering crew making a temporary kitchen and gardeners putting bunting on the gazebo. Shockingly, the gazebo eats zero people.

The following content is best imagined in a brady bunch grid of chaos. 

Square 1: The Gazebo of Not Eating People

At the ceremony gazebo, Dryali takes up his station while Quelenna patrols nearby. With a 14 investigation for Dryali and a 21 perception for Quelenna, both of them notice that in the very front row of chairs carrying the House Ghanjashka, there is one with a leg cut three quarters of the way through. Sitting right on the aisle, it was probably meant for Talaa, their matriarch.

Quelenna exits the scene to speak to staff and tell them the chair needs to be replaced, while an attentive watcher can see Dryali carefully checking all the other chairs. 

Square 2: The Aesthetically Pleasing Forest

At the picturesque grove near the gazebo, Ana is flying above the trees with Hawkie perched on her shoulder. Being her typically oblivious self, Ana and her 4 perception needs Hawkie to dig their claws in before she manages to notice that there are people in the trees. On the ground, Ondar with Frostclaw (17 perception) and Tai (14 perception) do much better. With a bit of prodding, they all notice that there is a Human and a Half Elf who have climbed up into the trees where they are well hidden from the ground. They’ve set up near a birds nest and have already grabbed some eggs to use as missiles. 

Ondar decides to solve this problem by pointing Frostclaw at the eggs and suggesting that he fetch. As soon as the Human in one tree catches sight of Frostclaw climbing up to them, they panic and immediately fall to the ground. Tai chooses the more direct method of cutting through the branch that the half elf is sitting on. 

As Ana sees them both fall to the ground, she flies to find someone to give the potential miscreants medical attention, exiting the camera view. In square 1, Dryali hears screams but assumes that means everything is going to plan. When Ana returns with some House Vandandalor guards, they immediately realize that only one was invited, and they certainly weren’t invited to mess up the party. The guards frog march out the potential egg throwers, who aren’t too hurt except for a suspicious stain on the Human’s pants. 

Square 3: The Reception Tent

In the large and impressive tent where the reception will be held, Tahu is patrolling when he notices that something doesn’t seem right about the dowry chest (18 perception). Traditionally, these chests are highly decorated and will hold a dowry from the bride’s family of money and magical items. The dowry is usually opened during the reception when they display the dowry to show off the wealth of the house. But while the chest has the correct Blue Dragonborn motifs of House Ganjashka, they seem like they were painted on afterwards. When Tahu gets closer to the chest to investigate, he hears it buzzing, and realizes it is probably a fake filled with bees as a bonus. When Tahu looks closely, he sees a little bit of sand around the base, and guesses that the original chest may be in the sand garden. 

Tahu immediately informs one of the catering staff that the chest is a fake so that no one will open it, then stays nearby while asking Quelenna to take a look in the sand garden for the real thing. When Tahu sees Zuzana, the wife of the House Ganjashka patriarch, he asks her for some details on the dowry chest. With a 26 persuasion, she is happy to tell him all about it, detailing the wonderful carvings and mentioning it is not lead lined to make the presence of wonderful magical objects more obvious to the guests. With this confirmation, Tahu asks the event staff to carefully remove the fake chest. 

Square 4: The Sand Garden

On Tahu’s request, Quelenna appears in frame to look for the original dowry chest in the sand garden. However, with a 12 perception, all she can see is that some people reraked the sand recently. It’s likely that the chest was buried and then the sand reraked. 

Without many other ideas, Quelenna replaces Dryali at the ceremony gazebo so that Dryali can try his hand at searching. But with an 11 perception, he doesn’t notice anything either, and wonders if the chest might be in the hedge maze instead. Checking there and back in the sand garden with detect magic running, he doesn’t detect anything in the hedge maze except small personal items. But in the sand garden on the North side, he gets a faint ping, and manages to pinpoint it to the northwest corner where there is some new abjuration and evocation magic. Looking at the area, Dryali can tell that it was recently re-raked. Using his all purpose tool, he asks Tai to come take a look and dig up the chest, but once Tai arrives they agree to leave it until the ceremony to avoid detection.

Dryali returns to the reception tent and lets Tahu know of his plan. Once the ceremony starts, Tahu agrees to take some staff members and dig up the dowry chest. 

As everyone returns to their assigned positions, the ceremony at the gazebo has now started. Guests are seated and the processional happens without any issues. The recessional also goes off without a hitch, and the bride and groom go into the picturesque forest to pose for their portrait sketch. 

As the reception begins, Ana stays in the sky. Ondar and Quelenna are patrolling outside the tent while Tai, Tahu, and Dryali are stationed inside. The tent is pretty huge, large enough for all the guests, a small musician stand in the northeast corner, and a special wedding party table in the northwest corner. 

As toasts begin, the heads of the houses give long winded speeches about how excited they are for the union of their two great houses. It’s pretty obvious that while members of House Vangdondalor and House Ghanjashka are actually happy, other houses with competing business interests are pretending to be happy with varied results. 

When another round of toasts begins, a burly Pewter Dragonborn stands up from one of the guest tables. He is well dressed, but in clothes that don’t fit super well, and is crying a fair amount. He starts to head toward the wedding party table, and is very clearly steeling himself (or possibly pewtering?) for some kind of drastic action. 

Tahu immediately rushes up with a towel to try and usher him out of the tent, drying his tears as they go, while Dryali just stands at his post and curses all lovesick fools. With a 19 persuasion, Tahu successfully redirects the Pewter Dragonborn. Luckily since he grew up in Ormond around Blue Dragonborn he is used to how they react. The Pewter Dragonborn is perfectly content to sob on Tahu’s shoulder about how beautiful Alicja is, how he thought he had a chance with her, and how awful the world is without her. Honestly, it’s a bit pathetic, but Tahu stays with him and lets him ramble so that the toasts can proceed without issue. 

After toasts, waiters emerge with dinner, moving from the cooking tent into the big reception tent. Watching them carry things in, Ana rolls a 2 perception and only notices how awesome the food is. But Ondar with a 15 and Quelenna with a 22 see that two of the waiters on opposite sides of the tent seem to be a bit too focused on tying their shoes, because they’re actually trying to saw through some of the ropes holding up the tent. 

On one end, Quelenna casually but quickly strolls over to the one she notices. Without saying anything, she takes the saw out of their hand, takes their other hand, and walks them over to a uniformed House Vangandalor guard. Thankfully, they go without protest. On the other end of the tent, the would-be saboteur notices that the night gets a bit darker because there is a bear looming over her. Frozen in fear, she can only look up at the bear and drop the saw. Ondar appears shortly after, shushes her, and points her to a guard while confiscating the saw. 

After dinner and cake presentation, the guests gather around the dance floor for the first dance. Dryali (10 perception), Tai (12 perception), and Tahu (10 perception) are keeping a close eye on the proceedings but get distracted by the cake. It’s absolutely gorgeous and sculpted to look like a lightning bolt. However, none of them notice that the musicians seem to be having a hard time with the piece chosen for the first dance. As the parent/child dances start, they finally realize that someone seems to have cast animate objects on the musicians' instruments. Unsurprisingly, they are struggling to play on a drum that runs away, a flute that would really rather be a snake, and a lute that has developed hedgehog spikes. 

Thankfully, though, the magic users in the group know that this is probably the work of object animation, which should last for a minute or less. Tai decides to search for the culprit and pulses a detect magic over the crowd, but is unable to find the person who cast the spell. Meanwhile, Dryali decides to help the band out by dispelling magic, managing to fix two of the instruments. Unfortunately, Tai isn’t able to detect the culprit. 

Thankfully, the party is able to continue after the band recovers, with the kids leaving about an hour later for the real fun to start. But as the recovered music continues to play, there is a sudden off key clanging and twanging bang. When our adventurers turn toward the band, it becomes clear that a dart has embedded itself through the lute. While the player seems unhurt, he has jumped a fair distance away from his lute and looks pretty freaked out.

Immediately after the lute is hit with a dart, everyone hears a voice emerge from near the peak of the tent. A strange woman’s voice is shouting: 

…Married?
I was married once
They tied me up in a big white dress
And forced promises from me
And fed me cake
And I danced until my feet bled
And they locked me in a dark room
And then the rats came
Rats?
I hate rats
They remind me of being married

As soon as she finishes the message, she starts repeating it again. When the party looks up, they see the figure of a Human woman floating at the peak of the tent. She has light brown skin and is wearing the tatters of an old fashioned wedding dress, but her hair fades from black to white instead of being a natural color. She doesn’t look like any of the guests, let alone the families being married. 

As soon as the woman finishes the second repetition of her message she cackles, snaps her hands, and disappears. Immediately, a demon appears on the floor underneath her and the crowd begins to panic.

Before combat starts, the guests inside the tent have time to scatter outside. Tahu and Tai usher people out as the Freelancers outside rush into the tent to see what the fuss is about. Dryali uses the time to create a force cannon.

• Quelenna attempts to punch the demon, but as soon as she gets close, all she can focus on is that the demon smells absolutely terrible. She’s too busy dry heaving to attack, and uses step of the wind to get away from the stench.
• Ondar, riding on his bear, closes with the demon and gets large to better attack. He hits it with a thrown javelin, and when the point pierces into the demon’s hide, shackles of fire appear and bind it, though the fire doesn’t appear to bother it much. Ondar then pierces it again with his rapier. 
• Tahu stabs the demon with his sword and dagger, then swashbuckles away before it has a chance to react. 
• Ana, riding Pelorus, fires off a lightning chromatic orb. It connects but the demon doesn’t seem too shaken by it. Ana then sends Hawkie outside to keep an eye on the crowd.
• Dryali fires his force cannon, hitting the demon and pushing it back 5 feet. He also throws out a firebolt and retreats to the west door.
• The demon, damaged by the chains of fire, is now bloodied. It now smells like burning putrid garbage instead of normal putrid garbage, which is really adding to the party atmosphere. While it manages to escape its chains, all it can do is gnash its teeth and make what sound like rude comments in abyssal. Even that stops when Ondar’s stone rune takes effect and it is incapacitated.
• Tai starts raging as a bolt of lightning shoots from his chest to hit the demon. He then attempts to slam his ax into the demon. It initially pings off one of the demon’s spikes, but he does manage to hit it on a second swing.
• Quelenna manages to recover from the smell at this point, and slashes the demon twice with her fans. She tries to punch it twice and connects with another hit.
• Ondar, having gotten a bit too close to the demon, is hit by the awful smell but manages to power through due to his cast iron stomach. He pierces the demon twice with his rapier.

As Ondar’s rapier plunges into the demon again, it falls to the ground and turns to bubbling black horribleness. It starts to seep into the ground and is generally vile. Ana attempts to examine it and figure out what kind of demon it was, but ends up being too busy throwing up to determine anything. Thankfully Dryali knows that it was a Hezrou demon. It’s a pretty common form summoned just to disrupt the proceedings. 

Outside, the guests have mostly stayed calm. After the battle, the staff are sent inside to clean up the goop to the best of their ability, and the party continues briefly. 

The Freelancers stay overnight at their stable accommodations, and return to the city in the morning. There, they receive their pay of 250 eagles, minus a 10% Freelancer Cut, with a 100 eagle bonus for averting most of the major issues. Plus the priceless bonus of having attended the wedding from hell.